Preferably wealth taxation, land value taxation, taxes on pollution. Things that remove the burden from labor (payroll and income) and onto massive accumulations of wealth, environmental destruction, and land (as Henry George once proposed in the late 19th century).

Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

Unless people worked hard to earn that money, it's already been taxed at least once and taxing it again would be abusive...

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

Unless people worked hard to earn that money, it's already been taxed at least once and taxing it again would be abusive...

Not sure what you mean to say by unless people worked hard, but I'll say two things: first, money is double and triple taxed all the time. If you live in a state with income tax, you pay federal and state income tax on your paycheck. Then you take the money that's left, go and buy a house and you pay a property tax. or you buy a shirt and pay sales tax. Even certain retirement plans can be taxed when you pay in and again when you withdraw benefits.

Second, the heirs of an estate aren't the ones who "worked hard" for the inheritance. Unless your parents own a business and were making you work there without pay, then you dont deserve to inherit a ton of wealth from them because you didn't do anything. If a man dies, let him pass on everything to the wife, because sure maybe you can argue that she did his cooking and cleaning for him, thus freeing him to go out and make tons of money. But his kids werent helping him at all, in fact they were already benefiting from his money every time he bought them things. This is why except for spouses, nobody should be allowed to receive massive amounts of inheritance, because they do not deserve it.

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

Don't care much for your parents, do you?

Not that its relevant, but I care very much for my parents. They have decades left to live, and I don't expect them to have anything beyond a house and maybe some modest savings when they eventually do die. However, say they won the lottery or something and had millions at their disposal. I would not deserve a cent of that money, since I didn't buy the lottery ticket and I didn't support them financially at any point in my life. I would have no problem with the government taking what they hadn't spent at the time of their death, leaving me with a house and a few thousand dollars of savings.

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

Unless people worked hard to earn that money, it's already been taxed at least once and taxing it again would be abusive...

Not sure what you mean to say by unless people worked hard, but I'll say two things: first, money is double and triple taxed all the time.

Yes, that doesn't mean that someone's income should be taxed again upon their death.

Second, the heirs of an estate aren't the ones who "worked hard" for the inheritance.

That doesn't matter at all. I mean, the argument "You didn't earn that for yourself therefore money you get should be taxed again." isn't an argument for estate taxation. It's an indication that you don't like the idea of property being heritable.

Usually when people talk about estate taxes, it's because they don't like the idea of billionaire playboys who live on trust funds flaunting money. That's fine. I don't like that either, but estate taxes hurt everyone.

Suppose there is a family house that is worth five or six hundred thousand dollars, and it's your childhood vacation home that's been in the family for generations. An estate tax levied on that house (which has been paid for, for generations) could force a judicial sale of the house. Stupid.

Suppose you've got a grandfather who worked as a company all of his life that he built from the ground up, and was very lucrative but he got a buy out offer from an international conglomerate and he took the money and retired somewhere warm and sunny. But then someone like Ford decides that his grown children shouldn't be able to inherent their share of the money to pay for the grandchildren's college education. So, rather than having every grandchild go to college on the money their grandfather worked for all his life, Ford thinks that they have no rightful claim to it and that they should have to take out student loans instead.

There is nothing more un-American than estate taxes. It's taxation on wealth at the point of death when it transfers to descendants. It means that previous generations can not provide for the material needs of their descendants, or that the deceased would be less able to do so.

It's absurd, but people don't consider the actual impacts that stupid ideas like estate taxes would have because they have no expectation of inheriting anything or no appreciation for what it means to have wealth and financial assets that have been in a family, that make up a part of what that family is. Not to mention that all of that money has already been taxed at least once...

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

Unless people worked hard to earn that money, it's already been taxed at least once and taxing it again would be abusive...

Not sure what you mean to say by unless people worked hard, but I'll say two things: first, money is double and triple taxed all the time.

Yes, that doesn't mean that someone's income should be taxed again upon their death.

Why not? You claim money being taxed on a persons death is "abusive" but how is that any different than money being taxed when a person buys an item or receives a paycheck? Furthermore, You are aware there is a gift tax, yes? We as a society have decided that transferring wealth can be taxed on many occasions. Nobody has yet made a convincing argument as to why death should be an exception.

Second, the heirs of an estate aren't the ones who "worked hard" for the inheritance.

That doesn't matter at all. I mean, the argument "You didn't earn that for yourself therefore money you get should be taxed again." isn't an argument for estate taxation. It's an indication that you don't like the idea of property being heritable.

I thought it was implied, but Here is my explicit argument for why estates should be taxed at high levels: collecting tax revenue is good for our government but bad for those who must pay the tax. In this case, the person paying the tax is dead, so they cannot complain about where their money is going. The only person who complains about estates being taxed is the heir, who doesn't deserve the money anyway. So society as a whole benefits from estate taxation, and the only people who oppose it are doing so for selfish reasons, despite the fact that they didn't help create any of that wealth in the first place.

Yes, I'm aware that the wealthy in this country are very good at squirreling away their money to avoid paying all kinds of taxes. This doesn't mean we can't try to close loopholes and raise rates to make up for this kind of greedy behavior.

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

Don't care much for your parents, do you?

Not that its relevant, but I care very much for my parents.

And how much is that care worth to you, if you were to even dream to put a number on it? 100k isn't exactly a lot to be left all alone in the world with.

At 12/31/2014 8:53:55 PM, YYW wrote:Usually when people talk about estate taxes, it's because they don't like the idea of billionaire playboys who live on trust funds flaunting money. That's fine. I don't like that either, but estate taxes hurt everyone.

Suppose there is a family house that is worth five or six hundred thousand dollars, and it's your childhood vacation home that's been in the family for generations. An estate tax levied on that house (which has been paid for, for generations) could force a judicial sale of the house. Stupid.

This is exactly why I said there should be an exemption of one home plus up to an additional X dollars worth of assets. So that no poor little rich boy gets screwed out of his family vacation home where he has all those memories of learning to play polo. Didn't read my proposal, or didn't understand it?

Suppose you've got a grandfather who worked as a company all of his life that he built from the ground up, and was very lucrative but he got a buy out offer from an international conglomerate and he took the money and retired somewhere warm and sunny. But then someone like Ford decides that his grown children shouldn't be able to inherent their share of the money to pay for the grandchildren's college education. So, rather than having every grandchild go to college on the money their grandfather worked for all his life, Ford thinks that they have no rightful claim to it and that they should have to take out student loans instead.

Yes, this is correct. Why on earth do the children, let alone the grandchildren of someone who is rich deserve to not have to work through college, or get a scholarship, or take out loans? The grandfather did all the work, so only he should reap the benefits. He got to move somewhere nice and enjoy the rest of his life. I'm sure he bought his grand kids lots of laptops and gifts that other kids without rich grandparents didn't get. Cry me a river that they only get say 10,000 each when he dies. That's 10,000 they don't even deserve anyway.

There is nothing more un-American than estate taxes. It's taxation on wealth at the point of death when it transfers to descendants. It means that previous generations can not provide for the material needs of their descendants, or that the deceased would be less able to do so.

No, there's something even more un-American and that's the gradual buildup of wealth from generation to generation that eventually leads to static socioeconomic classes. Did you know that in recent times, economic mobility has decreased? Meaning if you are born poor you are more likely to stay poor, and if you are born rich you are more likely to stay rich. Why is it American to give kids different chances at success based on how their relatives did from 3 generations ago? Previous generations shouldn't be providing for their descendants. That's how it was in Europe with monarchies and nobility. Your ancestors shouldn't determine your prospects for financial stability. The American dream is to work hard and turn yourself into a success story, not to cross your fingers and hope younger born into a rich family.

It's absurd, but people don't consider the actual impacts that stupid ideas like estate taxes would have because they have no expectation of inheriting anything or no appreciation for what it means to have wealth and financial assets that have been in a family, that make up a part of what that family is. Not to mention that all of that money has already been taxed at least once...

Oh, this is what you call "ad Homs" right? Here let me try a few too. Stupid. Wealth doesn't define family, period. You sound like a royalist or something. Absurd. If you appreciate your family for the wealth and financial assets in it, you live a sad life. Some people don't consider the actual impact of socioeconomic disparity in this country. They have no appreciation for the need to fund social programs and education. They have no understanding of anything beyond their greedy little minds and their excitement for mom and dad to die so they can get their paws on the treasure.

See I can throw out insults too. Or we can just have a civil discussion on why we disagree about estate taxation. I don't know what it is with you, but you seem incapable of just having a normal discussion without resorting to petty insults. Makes me think you're kind of insecure or something.

At 12/31/2014 9:03:13 PM, AnDoctuir wrote:I know money doesn't buy happiness or anything, and I'm not even pro-private property, but I would have a hard time so unsympathetically stripping a child of his or her deceased parents' wealth.

You do realize in the vast majority of cases, we are not talking about some poor orphaned boy, right? We are talking about a 40-50 year old person who should have their own job and house by that point in their life. If you wanted to write an exception to the estate tax where minors are allowed to keep more, I wouldn't be opposed to that. Nobody's talking about turning little Bruce Wayne into a homeless orphan here.

At 12/31/2014 8:23:11 PM, ford_prefect wrote:Estate tax needs to be much higher. I would love to see an upper boundary on the net worth of inheritances. There is no reason for children to receive more than say one house and $100,000 worth of other assets from their deceased parents.

Unless people worked hard to earn that money, it's already been taxed at least once and taxing it again would be abusive...

Does that theory still hold with taxes on dividends, capital gains, and interest?

At 12/31/2014 9:03:13 PM, AnDoctuir wrote:I know money doesn't buy happiness or anything, and I'm not even pro-private property, but I would have a hard time so unsympathetically stripping a child of his or her deceased parents' wealth.

Yeah I've never understood the eagerness to break up estates either. Just leave it alone. Like YYW pointed out it's already been taxed. I think there's just an emotional reaction to some people having an advantage due to inheritance

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An estate tax, justified under the arguments made by Thomas Paine in his 'Agrarian Justice', and used mostly for redistributive means.

A flat tax, for the funding of essential functions of government.

Tariffs, to give a nation a means of controlling trade and to provide additional revenue.

"The Collectivist experiment is thoroughly suited (in appearance at least) to the Capitalist society which it proposes to replace. It works with the existing machinery of Capitalism, talks and thinks in the existing terms of Capitalism, appeals to just those appetites which Capitalism has aroused, and ridicules as fantastic and unheard-of just those things in society the memory of which Capitalism has killed among men wherever the blight of it has spread."
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At 12/31/2014 9:03:13 PM, AnDoctuir wrote:I know money doesn't buy happiness or anything, and I'm not even pro-private property, but I would have a hard time so unsympathetically stripping a child of his or her deceased parents' wealth.

Yeah I've never understood the eagerness to break up estates either. Just leave it alone. Like YYW pointed out it's already been taxed. I think there's just an emotional reaction to some people having an advantage due to inheritance

What is the disadvantage to levying an estate tax? I can list many advantageous things that could be done with the revenue.